A new baby oviraptorid, Gobiraptor minutus, from Cretaceous Mongolia that may have eaten bivalves source

The first stegosaur named in Mongolia, Mongolostegus exspectabilis, may be the most recent stegosaur found to date source

A new article in Nature shows that two-thirds of 3D scan data is not shared online, largely so authors can exclusively use it for future work source

The Montana House of Representatives passed the bill that says fossils are part of a property’s surface estate, not the mineral estate source

The National Showcaves Centre for Wales sold a 15ft tall 30 ft long Allosaurus sculpture to make space for new sculptures source

The dinosaur of the day: Dromaeosaurus

Theropod that lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now the western U.S. and Alberta, Canada

Not many fossils found

Holotype includes a partial skull (missing most of the top of the snout), and some foot bones

Discovery of other dromaeosaurids have helped fill in the gaps about Dromaeosaurus (Dakotaraptor, Utahraptor, other raptors, etc.)

About 6.6 ft (2 m) long and weighed about 33 lb (15 kg)

Had a robust skull, and sharp teeth

Phil Currie published a study of Dromaeosaurus in 1994 and said the “braincase bones are not pneumatized” (heavy)

Probably had a good sense of smell

Had robust teeth, that had a lot of wear and tear (probably used to crush and tear, or “puncture and pull”, not slice flesh)

Therrien and others in 2005 said Dromaeosaurus’ bite was almost three times more powerful than Velociraptor and may have used its jaws more than its sickle claw

May have gone after large prey, and may have eaten bone (similar feeding strategy to tyrannosaurids)

Had a sickle claw on each foot

Type species is Dromaeosaurus albertensis

Described in 1922 by William Diller Matthew and Barnum Brown

Name means “swift running lizard”

Species name refers to Alberta

Fossils found in 1914 on an American Museum of Natural History expedition at Red Deer River (area now part of Dinosaur Provincial Park)

Seven other species were named, mostly based on fragments. Some have been reclassified as other genera (Troodon, Velociraptor), and the rest are considered nomina dubia.

Matthew and Brown put Dromaeosaurus in its own subfamily Dromaeosaurinae, under Deinodontidae, but in 1969 John Ostrom said it was similar to Velociraptor and Deinonychus, and assigned them to Dromaeosauridae (many more dinosaurs found, so there are lots of subfamilies within Dromaeosauridae, including Dromaeosaurinae)

Dromaeosaurs were small to medium sized feathered carnivorous theropods that lived in the Cretaceous

They’re often known as raptors (one of the most famous ones is Velociraptor)

Found all over the world, on six continents, and possibly some teeth in Australia (so maybe all seven continents)

Closely related to birds

Bob Bakker and John Ostrom used droameosaurs (Deinonychus) to show dinosaurs were fast and smart, and related to modern birds

Generally they had large skulls, serrated teeth, good binocular vision, large hands, long tails, and sickle claws on their feet (kept this toe off the ground when walking), and probably all were feathered

Can see a cast at the Royal Tyrrell Museum’s Field Station (pack of Dromaeosaurus attacking a Lambeosaurus)

Fun Fact:
Mongolostegus/Wuerhosaurus may be the most recent stegosaur, but there have been more recent tracks found in Australia, so that might be a good place to find a more recent stegosaur.

an online shop called LovePop that makes Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom pop-up cards available costing $15 a pop

A Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom restaurant is temporarily open in Tokyo, Japan

The dinosaur of the day: Nomingia

Oviraptorid theropod that lived in the Cretaceous in what is now Mongolia

Medium-sized, about 5.6 ft (1.7 m) long and weighed 44 lb (20 kg)

Had a pygostyle tail, with five fused vertebrae (probably had a feather fan)

Tail was shorter than most dinosaur tails

Could have used tail for display, where one bowed towards another and raised its tail, and the one with the largest and best developed tail would be considered the most attractive

Before Nomingia, this bone structure was only found in birds

Would not have been able to fly

Also had a beak, and probably had a crest for display

Holotype found in 1994 by the Mongolian-Japanese Palaeontological Expedition, in the Nemegt Svita, found partial left leg, pelvic girdle, and most of the spine

Described in 2000 by Barsbold and others

Only one species: Nomingia gobiensis

Name refers to where the fossils were found (Nomingiin Gobi is a nearby part of the Gobi Desert, where it was found)

Unclear what it ate

Other dinosaurs that lived in the same time and place include the ornithomimosaur Gallimimus, the therizinosaur Therizinosaurus, the hadrosaur Saurolophus, the ankylosaur Tarchia, the sauropod Nemegtosaurus, the dromaeosaur Adasaurus, the troodont Zanabazar, and tyrannosaurus such as Alioramus and Tarbosaurus

Fun Fact:

Some dinosaurs that sat on eggs may have had to frequently “turn” their eggs. Modern dinosaurs (birds) turn their eggs non-stop about every 30 minutes the entire time they are brooding ~2 weeks–2 months.

This episode was brought to you by:

TRX Dinosaurs, which makes beautiful and realistic dinosaur sculptures, puppets, and exhibits. You can see some amazing examples and works in progress on Instagram @trxdinosaurs.

A new denim jacket with sequin dinosaurs has become very popular after getting shared on Facebook. You can easily find them with an eBay search

A funny although inaccurate shirt shows the three phases of matter in T. rex form

The dinosaur of the day: Ohmdenosaurus

Name means “Ohmden lizard”

Herbivore that lived in the Early Jurassic in what is now Germany

Named and described in 1978 by Rupert Wild, a German paleontologist who visited the Urwelt-Museum Hauff at Holzmaden in the 1970s and saw that a fossil labeled as a plesiosaur was actually a dinosaur bone

Type species is Ohmdenosaurus liasicus

Name refers to Ohmden, the town near the quarry where Ohmdenosaurus fossils were found

Species name refers to Lias, which is an old name for Early Jurassic

Only a few fragmentary leg bones have been found

Some think Ohmdenosaurus may not be a valid genus, because so few remains have been found

May be a vulcanodontid, which are basal sauropods, but Vulcanodontidae has historically been a waste-basket taxon for basal sauropods (but not enough Ohmdenosaurus bones have been found to determine if it is for sure Vulcanodontidae)

Holotype includes partial limb bones (tibia, astralgus, calcaneus)

Tibia is only 405 mm long, which is small for a sauropod

Small, about 13 ft (4 m) long

Bones found had signs of weathering, so it probably died on land and then the bones were washed into the sea

Fun Fact:

Sauropods would make great painters if they could figure it out (like elephants have)

Sauropods aren’t mammals and probably have different painting abilities than elephants, but birds can be trained to use tools, so who knows…

Jonathan Kingdon says a rearing elephant can reach 7m (23ft)

high enough to (theoretically) paint most houses

Paul’s paper shows a Giraffatitan with its mouth 16m (>52ft) off the ground

In our 81st episode, we got to speak with members of the Saurian team and hear updates on their game as well as what’s going on with their awesome Kickstarter project.

As you may recall from our interview with Saurian in episode 43, Saurian is an open world survival game that is both beautiful and scientifically accurate. In the game you play as one of four dinosaurs: Dakotaraptor, Pachycephalosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, or Triceratops, and you must survive from hatchling to adult in the Hell Creek ecosystem. Each life stage comes with new challenges, all while managing physical needs and avoiding predators and natural hazards.

We also talk about Citipati, an oviraptorid theropod that had a tall crest on its head like a cassowary.

Like learning about dinosaurs? Then help us keep the podcast going and check out our Patreon page!

Species name is in honor of Halszka Osmólska, a paleontologist known for oviraptorids and Mongolian theropods

Found in the Gobi Desert

Many well-preserved skeletons found, and some found brooding on top of nests

Holotype is of a nearly complete skeleton

There may be a second species, but it’s unnamed

One of the larger oviraptorids, though not as large as Gigantoraptor (named in 2007)

About 10 ft (3 m) long

Had a long neck and short tail

Had a short skull with lots of openings in the bone structure

Had a toothless beak and a tall crest (similar to a cassowary)

Very similar to Oviraptor, and often the two are confused

In 1981 a large oviraptorid with a distinct crest was called Oviraptor, but has been tentatively reclassified as a second species of Citipati (and has the large tall headcrest like a cassowary, taller than other Citipatis)

This skeleton was so well known it’s often depicted as Oviraptor (especially since the Oviraptor holotype had a crushed skull so it’s unclear exactly what it looked like)

Four Citipati specimens have been found in brooding positions on top of egg clutches. One has the nickname Big Mamma (described in 1999 and referred to as Citipati in 2001)

Possible that Citipati had feathers on its forelimbs (position suggests the feathers would help cover the nest, with its arms and legs spread out on each side of the nest)

Modern birds assume a similar posture, which further links birds and theropod dinosaurs

The discovery of Citipati brooding changed the way scientists thought about Ovirapotorids, especially in 1993 when they found a Citipati embryo inside and egg thought to be a Protoceratops. Instead of being egg thiefs, they cared for their young

Many Citipati eggs have been found

Citipati eggs are oval shaped and were arranged in concentric circles of up to three layers. Clutches may have had as many as 22 eggs

Eggs are 7 in (18 cm) long

In the same nest where scientists found the Citipati embryo, they also found two skulls of embryonic Byronosaurus (a troodontid), which means Citipati may have preyed on them or an adult Byronosaurus laid eggs in the Citipati nest so that Citipati would raise them (nest parasitism)

Oviraptorids lived in the Cretaceous in Mongolia and North America

They used to be considered ornithomimids, but now they’re part of Maniraptora

They are generally small, with short skulls, toothless jaws, and crests on the skull

Had feathers

Compared to other maniraptorans, they have short tails

Fun fact: There have been over 300 animal taxa named after Charles Darwin including at least 2 dinosaurs. One, the Demandasaurus darwini, was discovered in Spain and named in 2011. It’s a diplodocoid sauropod from the Cretaceous. The Darwinsaurus evolutionis was named in 2012 after being referred to by different names since the 1800s, but may be a nomen dubium for another hadrosaur (also from the Cretaceous).

For those who may prefer reading, see below for the full transcript of our interview with the Saurian team:Continue Reading …

The dinosaur of the day: Anzu wyliei, which is the name of a feathered Mesopotamian demon

The wyliei name comes from a boy named Wylie, a dinosaur enthusiast and grandson of a Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh trustee

Dr. Matthew Lamanna from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and Dr. Hans-Dieter Sues and Dr. Tyler Lyson from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, and Dr. Emma Schachner from the University of Utah all studied Anzu

Dr. Tyler Lyson first found the bones of the third Anzu skeleton when he was a teenager (on his uncle’s ranch in North Dakota)

Scientists found partial fossils of three skeletons in North and South Dakota, in the Hell Creek formation (formed at the end of the Cretaceous, and known for its T-rex and Triceratops fossils)

Anzu lived on a wet floodplain

Anzu was bird-like, with a bony crest on top of head and a long tail

Anzu had a tall, thin crest; big beak, sliding jaw joint (could have been used to eat plants and meat)

Anzu was about the size of a small car, with claws and feathers on its upper arms (a cross between an emu and a modern reptile)

It had a toothless beak, and the crest on its head is similar to a cassowary

Probably had feathers

Because of Anzu, paleontologists now know for sure that Anzu, Caenagnathus, and Chriostenotes are their own group in Oviraptorosauria, and that Gigantoraptor (the largest oviraptorosaur known, weighing 1.5 tons) also belongs to the Caenagnathidae group (some in this group are small, turkey-sized, but they are very diverse group)

Even though Anzu’s head is strange looking, its body is similar to Velociraptor, which lived a few million years earlier

Anzu seems to have gotten a lot of injuries. Two of the three Anzu specimens have injuries, one with a broken and healed rib, the other with an arthritic toe bone caused by a fracture where a tendon ripped off a piece of bone). It’s unclear whether Anzu fought among themselves or against larger predators, like T-rex

According to Dr. Sues and his team, though climate change may have contributed to dinosaurs going extinct, Anzu proves that dinosaurs were still evolving and were diverse even at the end. This helps prove it was the aestroid that killed dinosaurs

The three Anzu skeletons are in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh (they helped identify Anzu)

Anzu is an Oviraptorosaur, whose name comes from the first skeleton found in 1924 that was on top a dinosaur egg nest, and scientists thought it was stealing the eggs. But in the 1990s, a baby oviraptorid egg was found inside a nest, which showed Oviraptorosaur was a good parent just protecting its eggs

Caenagnathids, oviraptorids, and other species from China are closely related, so paleontologists grouped them in the theropod group Oviraptorosauria

The name Caenagnathus means “recent jaws.” The first caenagnathids found were thought to be close relatives of birds like ostriches because they had similar lower jaws. But now scientists think this similarity evolved convergently with modern birds

The Caenagnathidae family, along with the family Oviraptoridae, is part of the superfamily Caenagnathoidea

Caenagnathids are very similar to Oviraptoridae, but they have distinct jaws (long and shallow, not as powerful a bite). The lower jaws also had ridges and shelf-like structures (crushing surface), and they were hollow and air filled as part of an air sac system. Caenagnathids are also lighter than Oviraptorids, with slender arms and long legs

Another difference between caenagnathids and oviraptorids is that caenagnathids tended to live in humid floodplains, and oviraptorids lived in arid areas

There are about 12 named caenagnathid species, but not all may be valid (some named from fragments of skeletons)

Fun fact: Dinosaur eggs are found in many different shapes and sizes. Most are spherical, and some can be almost 1 foot long, though the smallest found so far is only about 1 inch long. Fossilized eggs are hard like rocks, but they retain their structures.